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could color with disorder-who, against our protestations, dragged men like Dr. Beecher and Albert Barnes, to the bar as criminals, after they had loaded them with suspicion by the outside assaults of the press-who boldly accused our voluntary societies of the deepest corruption, and our ministry in general of unsoundness in faith, and immorality in practice— who lashed up their adherents to a work of church revolution, by which old fashioned American Presbyterians were to be outlawed from charters, securities and funds-should now hate controversy.

Having urged a theological and ecclesiastical assault for some fifteen years, and finally (not by action of courts under our Form of Government, but by an accidental majority which they had wrought to the phrensy of the deed by their conventions), attempted to strip us deliberately of every right as Presbyterians under our Charter, and sent out their slanders through the press, to reconcile the world to their injustice, they now desire to dismiss the whole subject. They now love peace, and look up in pious wonder, that we presume to turn over the leaves of their past history. They seem to imagine that the historic life of a church is in lumps, rather than links, and that they can separate their responsibility from their acts.

The dismemberment of a great Christian denomination, by set purpose the perpetration of schism in the body of Christ by revolutionary violence-the exiling of hundreds of ministers and thousands of members, from the church of their affections— the perversion of Christian charity-the branding with heresy of men, whom they had failed to convict on fair trial-the excommunication of myriads of good and true Presbyterians by chain and compass, according to their geographical positionall this is not to be regarded as a by-game of party leaders, nor as a slight ecclesiastical divertisement to be enclosed in a historical parenthesis, to be omitted because its remembrance disturbs the equanimity of the actors in the scene.

As a matter of fact, the Excision Acts are universally regarded, by our branch of the Church, as immoral, unjust, unchristian, and pernicious alike to the prosperity of religion, and the public morals, and by how much these wrongs were compassed and sanctioned, by the authority of great names,

and great moral worth, by so much the more do we see the necessity of stern reprobation, lest crime so sanctioned, should assume the garb of virtue, and thus become a precedent of evil to all coming ages, and to the whole Church of God. Hence much as we love peace, and much as we may regret differences among brethren, we will not allow men who have crushed constitutions, trampled on covenants, and outraged rights by Lynch law excisions of their brethren, to say how long, or how loud or wide-spread, shall be the wail of truth and justice over their crimes. The tyrant of Austria is not to complain because Hungary is not satisfied with the gentle discipline of dungeon apartments, and the music of the lash and chain. The Free Church of Scotland is not to be told how long it shall reprobate the despotism, by which its ministers and members were exiled from churches, manses, and the sepulchres where rest the ashes of their fathers.

The evils of the Excision Acts are not to be regarded as slight, because God, in his kind providence, limited their aim and tendency. They were adapted to shake the confidence of the Christian world in the theological soundness and ecclesiastical standing of our members, to drive our ministers from their pulpits and charges to wander in reproach and penury, to divide and scatter our congregations, to annihilate our Sabbath schools. and bible classes, to strike down our missionary movements, and leave our foreign and domestic missionaries without bread. And this would have resulted from them, if public sentiment had not rebelled against their injustice. Those who perpetrated such deeds, are not to suppose that history will be silent, and that they can reap the result of their ecclesiastical violence in peace.

With these impressions, we are rejoiced that the venerable Synod of New York and New Jersey, at their Sessions held in the city of Brooklyn, in October, 1850, adopted the following preamble and resolutions:

The Synod, taking into view the state of that branch of the Church with which they are connected, believe that their interests, and the cause of truth and righteousness, will be promoted by the careful preparation, and the wide diffusion of a history of the causes which produced a division of the Presbyterian Church in this country; therefore,

VOL. I.-42.

Resolved, That a committee, consisting of five Ministers and five Ruling Elders, be appointed to prepare and publish a brief history of the causes which produced this division, and of the subsequent attempts which have been made by our branch of the Church to unite the two Assemblies, together with the legal rights of churches in which attempts may be made to remove them from our connection.*

The members of the committee were designated as follows:

Rev. G. N. Judd, D. D., Rev. T. H. Skinner, D. D., Rev. E. F. Hatfield, D. D., Rev. Jos. S. Gallagher, Rev. S. T. Spear, D. D., Hon. Jos. C. Hornblower, Hon. Cyprus P. Smith, Hon. John L. Mason, Hon. Daniel Haines, Hon. William Jessup.

The gravity of this resolution, from such a body, with the high character of the committee appointed, indicates the interest attached to the whole subject. We believe our friends were right in this effort to embalm a true history of the division of our Church, for the verdict of posterity.

We are constantly assailed by private hints and insinuations, laboured assaults in the pulpit, and the constant anathemas of the periodical press; by grave histories from learned professors like Dr. Hodge, and scavenger gatherings, like the Rev. James Wood's account of Western New York; by the heavy artillery of the chief battery at Princeton, down to the popgun peltings of the Rev. Lewis C. Cheeseman. If a strong scent and keen eye for our heresy, if a steady track of our steps, a good aim, right good will and loud explosions could kill us, we ought to have been theologically and ecclesiastically dead these ten years. Our death has been the subject of prophecy and even history, by our separated brethren. Sometimes they have even written our obituary, and stood ready to inscribe on our coffin, "ecclesia fuit." If they see in us some pulse of life left, they are always telling the world it is only a little spasmodic motion; that by either orthodox absorption or Congregational extravasation, we are bound to die soon.

Now, though it be true that we have lived down their sneers, though public sentiment has entirely failed to endorse their impeachment of our orthodoxy or order, though most of the charges fall harmless to the ground, yet so long as the vituperation is continued, we owe it to truth, to ourselves, to our children, to posterity, that a fair history of their acts shall put

• Minutes, p. 15.

it in the power of the present and future generations to judge fairly between us. The book under review is such a history. The real author of the work, we understand, is the Rev. Gideon N. Judd, D. D., formerly of Bloomfield, N. J., but more recently of Montgomery, N. Y. He was chairman of the committee of Synod. He had their advice and revision, but the work is mainly his own. Many of our readers have seen him. If so, they will never forget a countenance on which native benevolence and the sweetest graces of Christianity, have left their indelible and unmistakable impress. In some of us religion has a rough nature to subdue, and violent passions to hold in check. Some of us have a tendency to meet wrong with the strong hand, and to overleap charity in vindicating the right. But the author of the work before us appears as if made to endure suffering with patience, to meet wrongs with meekness. Hence, above all others, he was the very man to write the present History of the Division of our Church. He collects facts so patiently, he arranges them so clearly, he depicts wrongs so impassively, he handles men so gently, and principles so sternly, his style is so unadorned and natural, that we might almost imagine he was an inhabitant of another sphere, writing a history of acts in which he had borne no part, and of wrongs which he had never felt. Or rather, his history brings to our recollection John, the beloved disciple, chronicling the sin of Peter, more in grief than in anger. On unprejudiced minds, his history will produce conviction of the rectitude of our ecclesiastical position. We hope for more. We hope that, in respect to some of the exscinders themselves, it will be an appeal "to Philip sober." It will be no fault in Dr. Judd, or in the matter and manner of his work, if these hopes are not realized.

The design of this article is to introduce the work to our readers, rather than to present thoughts of our own. We shall therefore offer no apology for our large quotations. The following is its table of contents, from which our readers may get a bird's-eye view of the entire volume:

Chapter I. History of the causes which produced the Division in the Presbyterian Church.-II. The grounds on which the majority attempted to justify their Exscinding Acts, and the Dissolution of the Third Presby

tery of Philadelphia, stated.-III. The grounds on which the Assembly attempted to justify their Abrogation of the "Plan of Union," the Excision of the Four Synods, and Dissolution of the Third Presbytery of Philadelphia, examined.-IV. The alleged, shown to be, not the real nor chief reason for the Excision of the four Synods.-V. The real grounds of the passing of the Acts of Excision, stated.-VI. Measures taken by the Constitutional portion of the Church to preserve its integrity, and prevent the organization of an irregular Assembly. They succeeded in organizing it in strict accordance with the principles of the Constitution.-VII. The Assembly, which held its Sessions in the Seventh Presbyterian Church, in 1833, was organized upon a basis wholly unknown to our Constitution.-VIII. Erroneous application of the names, Old and New School. Those who style themselves Old School are the New, and those whom they denominate the New are the Old School branch of the Presbyterian Church.-IX. Policy of the self-styled Reformers concerning a division of the funds, and their feelings in reference to an appeal to the law of the land, to decide to whom they belonged, or how they should be divided. Unsuccessful efforts of the Constitutional Assembly to prevent litigation. Legal proceedings, and their results.-X. Measures taken by the Constitutional Branch of the Church to unite the two in one body.-XI. Our position, duty and prospects.— Appendix.

Into the appendix Dr. Judd has thrown, (1.) The charge of Judge Rogers. (2.) The charge of Judge Gibson. (3.) The opinion of Chancellor Kent, showing the Excision Acts to be illegal, unjust, null and void. (4.) The opinions of George Wood Esq., of New York, and Judge Hopkins of Auburn, to the same effect.

Such is an outline of the work under review. It covers the whole ground of controversy between the two divisions of the Presbyterian Church. To the questions in what respects the two branches of our Church differ, and why, and how they separated, this book according to its design, gives a clear, comprehensive and truthful answer. Hence it should be put into the hands of every clergyman, theological student, ruling elder and intelligent church member in our communion.

Our Church has hitherto borne the assault of her opponents without any deliberate, systematic, authoritative and compendious defence. Now the calm, clear voice of historic truth has spoken through this book, and we hope it will be as widespread as the errors which it is adapted to counteract.

As we have counselled all to purchase the work, we do not deem it necessary to follow the author through the dark avenues he has had to thread. To a few points only can we call the attention of our readers.

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